Preoperative therapy of esophagogastric cancer: the problem of nonresponding patients

Introduction Preoperative treatment is nowadays standard for locally advanced esophagogastric cancer in Europe. Surprisingly, little attention has been paid to nonresponders so far. The aim of our retrospective exploratory study was the comparison of responder, nonresponder, and primary resected patients in respect of outcome considering the tumor entity. Patients and methods From 2001–2011, 607 patients with locally advanced esophagogastric carcinoma (adenocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction (AEG), n = 293; squamous cell cancer (SCC), n = 111; gastric cancer, n = 203) after preoperative treatment ( n = 281) or primary resection ( n = 326) were included. Histopathological response evaluation (Becker criteria) was available for 263. Results A total of 76/263 (28.9 %) were responders (